PHEORIS WEST (1950 2021) Loose Booty

Sale 2707 - Lot 29

Price Realized: $ 6,750

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000

PHEORIS WEST (1950 - 2021)
Loose Booty.

Oil on canvas, 1974. 1803x1289 mm; 71x50¾ inches. Signed and dated, lower right. Titled on label, upper stretcher bar, verso. Inscribed "#27" in oil, verso.

Provenance
The artist.
Private collection, California.

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Additional Details

This striking and dynamic composition is an excellent example of the early painting of Pheoris West, and the first significant work from this period to come to auction. With its throbbing Philadelphia nighclub scene of multi-facted dancers in vibrant, transclucent colors, Loose Booty typifies West's first mature period of painting. It shows his interests in incorporating movement, Afro-centric symbolism and music that continue through his practice. Another work from his 1970s period is in the collection of North Carolina Central University Art Museum and was included in the 1999 landmark exhibition To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Born in Albany, New York, West studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, from 1970-74, and then earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University in 1976. That year West joined the faculty at the College of Arts at Ohio State University. He taught as a professor of art there until until he suffered a debilitating stroke in 2016. Over a forty year career, West had solo exhibitions with Peg Alston Arts, New York, the Studio Museum in Harlem and several Ohio university galleries. His paintings today are in many collections including the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, Howard University, the Ohio State University, the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati and the Petrucci Family Foundation of African American Art. St. James pp. 560-562.